HP 2009 Annual Report Download - page 22

Shane V. Robison; age 56; Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy and Technology Officer
Mr. Robison has served as Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy and Technology Officer
since May 2002.
Employees
We had approximately 304,000 employees worldwide as of October 31, 2009.
Available Information and Exchange Certifications
Our Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on
Form 8-K and amendments to reports filed or furnished pursuant to Sections 13(a) and 15(d) of the
Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, are available on our website at http://www.hp.com/
investor/home, as soon as reasonably practicable after HP electronically files such reports with, or
furnishes those reports to, the Securities and Exchange Commission. HP’s Corporate Governance
Guidelines, Board of Directors committee charters (including the charters of the Audit Committee, HR
and Compensation Committee, and Nominating and Governance Committee) and code of ethics
entitled ‘‘Standards of Business Conduct’’ also are available at that same location on our website.
Stockholders may request free copies of these documents from:
Hewlett-Packard Company
Attention: Investor Relations
3000 Hanover Street
Palo Alto, CA 94304
(866) GET-HPQ1 or [phone]
http://www.hp.com/investor/informationrequest
ITEM 1A. Risk Factors.
Because of the following factors, as well as other variables affecting our operating results, past
financial performance may not be a reliable indicator of future performance, and historical trends
should not be used to anticipate results or trends in future periods.
The competitive pressures we face could harm our revenue, gross margin and prospects.
We encounter aggressive competition from numerous and varied competitors in all areas of our
business, and our competitors may target our key market segments. We compete primarily on the basis
of technology, performance, price, quality, reliability, brand, reputation, distribution, range of products
and services, ease of use of our products, account relationships, customer training, service and support,
security, availability of application software, and Internet infrastructure offerings. If our products,
services, support and cost structure do not enable us to compete successfully based on any of those
criteria, our operations, results and prospects could be harmed.
Unlike many of our competitors, we have a portfolio of businesses and must allocate resources
across these businesses while competing with companies that specialize in one or more of these product
lines. As a result, we may invest less in certain areas of our businesses than our competitors do, and
these competitors may have greater financial, technical and marketing resources available to them than
our businesses that compete against them. Industry consolidation also may affect competition by
creating larger, more homogeneous and potentially stronger competitors in the markets in which we
compete, and our competitors also may affect our business by entering into exclusive arrangements with
existing or potential customers or suppliers.
We may have to continue to lower the prices of many of our products and services to stay
competitive, while at the same time trying to maintain or improve revenue and gross margin. The
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